Jeyson Aldana can list off the names of the very first people they advised at UC Santa Cruz from memory. They can point at a photo from a global community health (GCH) commencement ceremony and rattle off each name and major of the students.
The first time you step into Aldana’s advising office, you are greeted with a bright smile and a warmly lit room. They’ll know your name even if you’ve only talked to them through emails and Zoom calls.
From interacting with them, you would never guess Aldana is overworked and underpaid.
“The student is never just a student, and here in the UC system, an advisor unfortunately is never just an advisor,” Aldana reflects. “We are always called to do things outside of our job description.”
They started as a GCH B.A. advisor in 2022 for two proposed students. In the following years, that number grew to 290.
This fall quarter, that number rose again to nearly 600 students. Aldana was asked to serve as the interim advisor for the GCH B.S. degree, the biomedical GCH concentration, and human biology majors after the split from the molecular, cell, and developmental biology advising department — in addition to their current role as the GCH B.A. advisor.
Despite the amount of students Aldana serves doubling, they were only compensated an additional 10 percent of their base pay as a stipend for the interim position.
Campus units are restricted from recruiting new staff with the current hiring freeze placed on staff and faculty positions. The hiring of a second GCH advisor only occurred because it was approved before the freeze. If Aldana leaves, it could mean there would be no replacement for the hundreds of students that rely on their work.
“It feels like they just put a giant glass dome over us and everyone who’s in here, that’s all you got,” Aldana said. “As soon as one person leaves, no one else can come in.”
Aldana recalled an instance where they worked three overtime hours in addition to their paid 40 hours a week. Even though working overtime is unpredictable, the university requires Aldana to request overtime in advance. Because of this, Aldana had to jump through several bureaucratic hurdles to get paid for their overtime.
In the face of add/drop/swap or major declaration deadlines, it is difficult to meet with students during working hours.
“I can’t control that advising ratio, and I can’t control the demands of the students, right?” Aldana said. “Some students will wait outside of my door and I’m like, ‘Shit, I can go home, or I can help this one student who’s breaking down.’”
Despite their efforts to serve students amidst the overflowing workload, Aldana’s request to increase their pay grade was not approved. Their request, submitted in 2023, has not received a response from management.
“I’ve been doing this for three years, and I’ve attempted a reclassification,” said Aldana, who currently holds a level two advisor position. “I’ve helped them out with GCH B.S., the B.A., I’ve done professional development opportunities from our campus.”
The 10 percent stipend for Aldana as the interim advisor has now ended as the GCH B.S. major advisor was onboarded after seven months.
“Like any job, you need to onboard them and that doesn’t happen in two or three days,” Aldana said. “Thankfully the GCH program is seeking out some type of funding, some type of stipend for me [while I] onboard this new advisor and then, hopefully by the end of this quarter, I’ll be back to my B.A. role fully.”
In the meantime, Aldana will advise three majors for the pay of one.
Advocating for the Future of Advising
Advisors working overtime and students unable to book timely appointments is not limited to GCH. Aldana knows other advisors that also struggle to avoid working overtime.
Aldana explained how in the psychology department, the ratio of students per advisor is about 600-to-1.
“Some ratios are just insane,” Aldana said. “Our campus created a report and they [recommended] that the golden ratio here should be one advisor to 250 students. [If] that is our golden number, that should be feasible for us. I’m at 1 to 290.”
In the midst of the $111 million budget deficit at UCSC, Aldana and other advisors are worried the deficit may affect their advising and ability to serve students.
“There’s a real fear about job security,” Aldana said. “Another major concern would be increased workloads or additional responsibilities creeping onto our current roles, especially during a structural deficit.”
To protect the worker rights of advisors, Aldana joined the Student Services and Advising Professionals (SSAP) group at UCSC. Since spring of 2023, the organization has worked with United Auto Workers, who also represents graduate student employees, to unionize.
SSAPs was notified on April 18 that the UC Office of the President approved their union. The organization is now waiting to be officially certified by the Public Employment Relations Board; after that, they will be formally recognized as a union.
“I can formally use my advocacy power to not only influence some of the important politics of the UC system, but also to grant us advisors something that we don’t have, which is job security or better wages,” Aldana said.
While Aldana is eager to make changes and find solutions to improve student services, the issues seem to be never-ending. Between growing student demand, hiring freezes and over-worked advisors, it is difficult to imagine a certain future.
Despite the barriers and lack of support from the university, Aldana enjoys the work and stays because of the students.
“I advise them because I care for all my students,” Aldana said. “If it weren’t for my advisors [while in undergrad], I wouldn’t have considered a double major and a minor, and I wouldn’t be happy. I would have been lost. This is such a big university and thanks to my major advisors, my minor advisor, and my college advisor, I found a place. I felt some belonging.”
